Lauren D. Woods Shares the Story Behind The Great Grown-Up Game of Make-Believe

Autumn House Press author Lauren D. Woods recently spoke with The Pittsburgh Review about her debut short story collection, The Great Grown-Up Game of Make-Believe, winner of the 2024 Autumn House Press Fiction Prize.
In the interview, Woods reflects on imagination as both refuge and revelation. While the collection explores themes of divorce, motherhood, grief, and longing, it does so through a playful, often surreal lens.

Sometimes, I feel like I’m every age I ever was. I feel my childhood so acutely, maybe because I journaled through it, and maybe because your emotions are so strong in childhood. I love thinking about why we are the way we are as adults, and much of it has to do with the particular ways that our childhoods formed us.

Throughout the interview, Woods returns to the idea of highlights boundary between childhood and adulthood, and what it means to escape any age. Woods uses surrealism and fairytale logic to probe deeper and relies on metaphor to approach difficult material from a new angle, whether it be shapeshifters or witches. Imagination for Woods is a tool for expressing survival and reinvention.

Read the full interview with Lauren D. Woods at The Pittsburgh Review to learn more about the inspirations behind The Great Grown-Up Game of Make-Believe and what she’s working on next.